Humans could be close to deliberately altering their evolutionary ”destiny” and one day even introducing a natural cancer vaccine into their inheritance, claimed the giants of genetic research gathered in London last night to celebrate ”50 years of DNA”.
”Human progress comes from knowledge,” said James Watson who, with Francis Crick in Cambridge, announced the double helix structure of DNA on April 25, 1953.
”We have got not only to accumulate knowledge but to use it. Right now, society – many people, at least journalists – think it somehow immoral if we use genetics to enhance ourselves. I think that we should be allowed to try to improve human life.”
The DNA celebrations coincide with the completion of the entire three billion letter genetic code of humans. DNA carries the recipe for life, controls the replication of each cell and the reproduction of every species.
Miro Bradman, of the French national institute for health and research, predicted that soon people would know enough to modify their own genomes.
”This marvellous molecule encodes for its own doctors — enzymes that repair and fix and change DNA. This DNA repair is associated with mutation; mutation is associated with evolution, which is how life is perptuated, but also with cancer and other terrible diseases,” he said.
Cancer researchers have identified more than 100 gene changes associated with tumours. They have also focused on one of the genes most linked to genetic repair. Mice treated with extra copies of this gene have managed to stave off cancer.
Could humans do the same? ”There is an interesting case to discuss: is it necessarily better to feed ourselves with chemicals to suppress symptoms rather than go and heal the disease where it starts, at the genome?”
The gathering, at the Royal Society yesterday, and at a dinner in London, marks a series of anniversaries. Alec Jeffreys, of Leicester University, the pioneer of genetic fingerprinting, pointed out that it was 30 years since researchers devised the techniques that led to the genetic modification of organisms, and it was the 25th anniversary of the discovery of variations within the human genome that could be used to identify individuals.
”One of the challenges now is to understand where that variation is coming from, how forces out there in the population, such as natural selection, are moulding those patterns of variation, and what the future evolutionary trajectory of the human species possibly is,” Jeffreys said.
Professor Watson (75) became leader of the project to sequence the human genome, and then director of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory, in New York state. He, Crick and the New Zealand scientist Maurice Wilkins, of King’s College London, shared the 1962 Nobel prize for discovering the structure of the double helix.
Prof Watson stirred up the world of science in 1968 with a provocative bestseller, The Double Helix, and he has continued to provoke ever since.
”I don’t see genetics as offending the gods because I don’t think there are any gods up there. So who are we offending by trying to use genetics to improve human life? What’s wrong with a woman wanting to have a healthy child?” he said.
Asked about the attitude of the US president George Bush to genetic research, he said: ”I had a better upbringing. I had a father who didn’t instil religion into me.” -Guardian Unlimited Â